Category Archives: Books

Book plans for 2018

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New year is coming and with it hopefully some new places to visit and new books to read. I’ll now focus on the book-ish part. For start, I’ve decided to set my 2018 reading challenge on Goodreads at the same 25 books per year as in 2017. 25 because it’s between 2 books/month (24) and one book per two weeks (26), and because number ending in 5 or 0 looks better in any case.

As for what I know will be in my 2018 reads, much of it is still unclear. I know that there will be pieces that just grab my attention on the way. I know there will be re-reads of things I liked before the next sequel comes out. And there will be some things that were sitting on my list of potential reads.

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Thoughts about chapter names

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Something I noticed lately was that vast majority of the books I’ve been reading only had chapter numbers, very rarely the chapters were named. During my recent thoughts, I’ve found that quite surprising.

Truth is that in this year, I was mostly reading self-published books that were in the 200-400 pages range and so it was not as important. If a book can be read in single evening, then it’s not as likely someone will try to find a specific passage to look at. I’ve realized that as reader, there might not be much benefit from named chapters.

That changes a lot when I shift to writer perspective, and that’s where my surprise comes from. The idea that I would be going through my draft without chapter names, trying to find a specific moment I needed to have a look on, is scary.

But then I thought about it again. Maybe the reason why it feels scary is on my side again, because of the sheer size into which I let my ideas expand – I am now somewhere around 450.000 words summed across book 0,5 (40k), book 1 (230k) and maybe 70% of book 2 (170k) + notes and bits that were cut already. Sometimes, I need to find a specific scene to look at. I am quite sure that just with chapter numbers, I’d be lost. Chapter names are pain to come up with, but I found them really helpful when I need to find something. And even though I do (and will do more) complete proof-reads myself before going to some kind of beta stage, I know that some parts were trickier to write than others and require several closer looks.

Well, I’ll end this random jumble of thoughts here I guess…

Book review: Soldier Scarred

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The fifth book picks up pretty much where the fourth left, with Endric tasked to bring Tresten to the Conclave. For the slightly better part, Senda is there with him. For the worst part, Urik is too. After his talk with him through the fourth book and Tresten’s approach to him – caused by hope for redemption – Senda does not understand why is he talking with him so often after all the time he spent chasing him and put him to justice.

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The picture of Dorian Gray, perfect November read?

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I don’t even know why I remembered this book, considering I was never too much into classics. But I thought with its content, it might be good fir for the gloomy November days. It was. I took my time with reading it, but enjoyed it all the same. There’s no better time in the year for reading a book about vanity, sinfulness, guilt and regret than it was now.

Since I doubt the point of doing reviews of classics that are well know, this is going to be more like a jumble of highlights and thoughts.

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Book review: Numen the Slayer

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This is the first time I took part in the “free copy for review” thing. Apart from that, I was reading the author’s comments on creating the book on Goodreads and eventually on his own blog. So, it was slightly different, both because I watched it being written, even if from great distance (curse me for this metaphor).

Yes, I broke my own plan to only do re-reads in the rest of the year within less than two weeks. Anyway, let’s get to the review.

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“You might like this”

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So, today, I am to share my thoughts about one of the things that can be useful, but can also cause you to facepalm hard. recommendation systems. What made me wonder about this more the last days? YouTube.

I was watching metal covers of game and film soundtracks, so as good as it could be, it recommended things to watch next. Since I have some other related things in my watch history (like best-of scenes or videos showing making game/film weapon replicas) it went quite well on pointing me to what I might know. Heck, I found some really good stuff there. Since I was in the rare mood when I felt like actually giving a thumbs up, I was logged in for all of the time.

Fast forward three days. I watch one of those things again. And that’s when the hilarity kicks in. Many of those were in the recommendation with the usual text “you might like this” (in my language). You don’t say? (I was so tempted to insert the Nicolas Cage meme…) Of course I might like this, I played it 10 times in a row the other day…

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Book review: Soldier saved

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Fourth book in the Teralin sword series, and one that I went through really fast. I had it read some 30 hours within release, which says much I guess. Again, I’ll do my best to avoid even small spoilers.

Anyway, the fourth book follows the events of second book, starting a few months later when Endric returns to Vasha from his journey ‘to his roots’ in the third book. He would like to say he’s returning home, but he can’t be sure anyway. He was away for almost a year, and he returns to see that much has changed.

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E-book experiences: is piracy overrated?

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Here I come again with another story about my e-book experiences. I know that this might be topic that goes into speculation a lot as either side in this conflict tries to make the impact look in their favour (there were cases when developers were inflating piracy numbers to make it look like more severe problem and vice versa). I am not here to advocate for any side, but to share my thoughts.

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E-book experiences: converted classics

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So, a story that goes back to the time when I bought my e-reader. Fact is that many classics are now under public domain as the copyright protection expired – I believe it’s 50-90 years since author’s death, varying by country. For that reason, classic books are usually available for quite low price and many are available completely free in electronic form. Even though I don’t have a thing for classics as I am mostly into fantasy and a bit of sci-fi, there are some pieces I’d like to read eventually, like Jules Verne’s books.

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